The night dripped slowly, like black ink seeping across white paper, cloaking Devara's small apartment in oppressive silence. She fell asleep on her worn sofa, her body exhausted after a day steeped in tension, but her mind churned like the rusted gears of a relentless machine. Sleep wasn't rest—it was more like sinking into a rushing current, dragging her to places she didn't choose, through corridors of time she didn't recognize. The necklace around her throat felt cold, an anchor tethering her to a cycle she couldn't comprehend.
She dreamed. But the dreams felt more real than her own life. First, she stood on the deck of a weathered wooden ship, the sea wind slapping her face with a wild, salty tang. Her rough hands gripped the rigging, fingers calloused from a life not her own. In the distance, beneath a roiling gray sky, a woman stood at the end of a pier. Her face was unfamiliar, but her eyes—black, deep as an abyss—belonged to Queen Li. She smiled, as if she had waited centuries, her hand offering something glinting, like the necklace now encircling Devara's neck.
The scene shattered, like cracking glass. Now she wore heavy iron armor, standing in a battlefield thick with smoke and screams. Blood dripped from her sword, her body riddled with wounds, and across a blood-soaked meadow, a woman in a red gown stood calmly on a hill. The same smile, the same piercing gaze, cutting through distance and time. Queen Li, always Queen Li.
Another fracture, a third world. She sat in an old café, the air heavy with cigarette smoke and cheap coffee. A Polaroid camera hung around her neck, her fingers trembling as she lit a cigarette. Black-and-white photos lay scattered on the table—bodies in alleys, wars in the streets, riots burning the city. From the café's entrance, a woman entered with a black umbrella, her dress simple yet elegant, her face unchanged since centuries past. That same smile, that gaze like a knife, slicing across eras and different bodies.
Devara woke gasping, her chest slick with cold sweat. She touched her face, her trembling fingers trying to confirm she was still her—not a sailor, not a soldier, not a photographer. But behind her eyes, those shadows flickered, like mirrors reflecting lives she hadn't lived. One face, one obsession, followed her through them all. Queen Li. Always Queen Li.
The next day, Queen Li sought her out. Not in a grand office or sterile boardroom, but in a corridor unlisted on Nexus Tower's blueprints, hidden behind a wall panel on the executive floor. The passage was long and cold, its plain concrete walls lit by flickering neon lights that seemed to peer like eyes. The air smelled of iron and dust, like a long-buried museum or a forgotten tomb. Queen Li led the way, her wheelchair gliding with a near-silent hum, each turn of its wheels like the ticking of a countdown clock.
"Every human lives with fragments of memory," Queen Li said, her voice soft yet commanding, like an ancient chant embracing the soul. "But you, darling, you live with fragments of a soul."
The corridor ended at a massive iron door, its surface etched with faint scratches like claw marks. Queen Li touched a fingerprint panel beside it, and the mechanism groaned, opening with a hiss like the breath of an ancient creature roused from sleep. Devara held her breath as she stepped inside, her heart pounding.
The room beyond stopped her cold. Hundreds of mirrors lined it, forming a labyrinth reflecting the dim ceiling lights. There were grand mirrors with tarnished gold frames, small ones with cracked edges, ancient ones with clouded surfaces that seemed to hold centuries of secrets. Each step Devara took created countless reflections, hundreds of fragmented, distorted versions of herself. For a moment, she saw other faces in the mirrors—a sailor with weary eyes, a soldier with a scarred cheek, a photographer with a blank expression. These weren't mere reflections; they were alive, staring back with questioning eyes.
"You… did this?" Devara whispered, her voice breaking, nearly drowned in the room's silence. Her heart hammered like a sledgehammer, her fists clenched to still the trembling.
Queen Li turned, her lips curving in a satisfied arc, like an artist unveiling her masterpiece. "I only preserved them," she said, her voice low and certain. "Your traces. Each time you returned, I marked you. I collected you. So I'd never lose you again."
Devara felt her chest being struck. The words were both a blow and a binding caress. "That's impossible," she said, her voice hoarse. "This is just an illusion. Your game."
"Illusion?" Queen Li glided closer, her wheelchair moving silently among the mirrors, her reflection multiplying a thousandfold, as if she existed in all directions at once, a goddess of time and space. "If it's an illusion, why do you tremble, darling? Why does your heart recognize me even as your mind resists?"
She reached out, her fingers brushing the necklace around Devara's neck. The cold touch froze her, like electricity coursing through her bones. "This necklace, my hair, your blood… they're the threads weaving us together again," Queen Li whispered, her eyes glinting like fire in the dark. "Do you think I'm just a woman obsessed? No. I'm a collector of time. The owner of eternity. And you… are the only thing that makes these centuries meaningful."
Devara closed her eyes, trying to shut out the reflections, but the mirrors kept showing faces that weren't hers now. Her head spun, as if pulled into a vortex of unwanted memories. Queen Li leaned closer, her hand tracing Devara's chest with slow, possessive movements, stopping at a small scar near her ribs, almost hidden beneath her shirt. "I know this," she whispered, her voice thick with desire warped by obsession. "You always die with a wound on your left side. From a spear, a bullet, a knife. The same wound, in different bodies. It's your mark, darling. The mark that you're mine."
Devara held her breath, her body trembling between anger and fear. Queen Li's touch wasn't just intimate—it was a claim, like a brand searing her skin. "If I always come back…" she said, her voice shaking but defiant, "why do I always come back to you?"
Queen Li's smile was faint, her eyes gleaming like stars falling into darkness. "Because my love is stronger than death," she said, her voice a mantra binding souls. "Because I wait, again and again, until you return. And this time… I won't let you go."
She pulled Devara closer, her grip on her arm unnaturally strong for her frail frame. The touch wasn't pure passion but possession—each movement a claim, each whisper a chain coiling around her soul. Her lips nearly brushed Devara's neck, her breath warm and heavy, laden with dark promises. "Look at yourself," she said, soft yet cruel, her voice a blade wrapped in silk. "You hate me, but your body can't escape. That soul has marked you. Even if you die now, I'll find it again, in another body, another century. We will always meet. We are fated. There's no way out."
Devara's chest tightened, the room's walls seeming to close in, the mirrors a prison reflecting her own fear. Hundreds of hers in the mirrors stared back with desperate expressions, as if every past version of her knew they, too, had failed to escape. But deep in her heart, a question stirred: Is there truly no way out?
That night, back in her apartment, her body still burned from Queen Li's gaze, her words looping endlessly in her mind like an unstoppable song. She stood in her bathroom, staring at her face in the small, cracked mirror. For a moment, another face stared back—a man from a century ago, with a thin beard and weary eyes, her own face yet different. She stepped back, her back hitting the wall, her heart pounding as if it might burst.
Her phone buzzed on the table, shattering the silence. A message appeared, no sender name, just one line that froze her blood: "Wait for me. I know the way out. – A"
Devara stood still, her eyes wide. The letter "A"—likely Dr. Artha—was a flicker of light in the darkness. But the shadows in the mirror kept watching, refusing to leave, a reminder that Queen Li was always lurking, always knowing. And in the corner of the room, the necklace around her neck felt heavier, like a shackle waiting to tighten.